CR - Among people who

[akhp77]

Source: GMAT Prep

Among people who experience migraine headaches, some experience what doctors call "common" migraines, whereas others experience "classical" migraines. Siblings and spouses of common migraine sufferers are themselves twice as likely as the general population to experience common migraines. Siblings of classical migraine sufferers are four times more likely than the general population to experience classical migraines, whereas spouses of classical migraine sufferers are no more likely than the general population to experience such headaches.

The information above provides the most support for which of the following hypotheses?

(A) Susceptibility to classical migraines is more dependent on hereditary factors than is susceptibility to common migraines.
(B) Unmarried adults are more likely to suffer from classical migraines than they are to suffer from common migraines.
(C) People who do not experience migraine headaches are unlikely to have spouses who are migraine headache sufferers.
(D) Children of people who suffer from common migraines are not more likely than the general population to experience a common migraine.
(E) Between one-quarter and one-half of the general population suffer from either common or classical migraine headaches.

OA: A

Based on the following fact, I convinced option A but I could not able to eliminate other options. What should be criteria to eliminate others?

My Analysis:
common migraine:
Siblings and spouses of sufferer - twice as likely as the general population

classical migraine:
Siblings of sufferer - four times more likely than the general population
spouses of sufferer - no more likely than the general population

[shatabdo.kal]

My 2 cents:

B : Out of scope
C: Can be true , can be false as Might be the partner is suffering from the Classical Migraine
D & E: Not mentioned in the argument

[bhumika.k.shah]

why and how is A correct?

[tim]

Nice job Shatabdo. i would add that D looks tempting because it invokes the genetic connection, but notice that it arrives at a conclusion opposite of what you would expect..

Bhumika, A is very clearly correct because the information establishes links between siblings for both types of migraine, with actual numbers to demonstrate a stronger hereditary link for classical migraines..

[tnpk.999]

Sorry for reopening this post, but I have got a basic doubt.

In the option A it says

"Susceptibility to classical migraines is more dependent on hereditary factors than is susceptibility to common migraines."

what does the word HEREDITARY mean here.

To my knowledge hereditary means characteristics passed from parent to children.

If between siblings can we say it as hereditary?

someone please shed some light on this

[jnelson0612]

Sorry for reopening this post, but I have got a basic doubt.

In the option A it says

"Susceptibility to classical migraines is more dependent on hereditary factors than is susceptibility to common migraines."

what does the word HEREDITARY mean here.

To my knowledge hereditary means characteristics passed from parent to children.

If between siblings can we say it as hereditary?

someone please shed some light on this

Yes. Hereditary means characteristics passed from parents to children; however, characteristics passed to me are also likely to be passed to my siblings, since they have the same parents. Thus, we should have similar characteristics. Hope this helps!

[SC312]

Ron,

This is an inference/must be true question and therefore should be supported by the facts present in the stimulus. Although I am not questioning the correct answer, can we not eliminate option A) just by the logic that the reason for siblings to be 4 times as likely as general population affected by Classical Migraine can be just a coincidence and might not be dependent on hereditary factors.

In otherwords, the inference cannot be conclusively proved by the facts in the stimulus.

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

This is an inference/must be true question and therefore should be supported by the facts present in the stimulus. Although I am not questioning the correct answer, can we not eliminate option A)

officially correct answers are correct!
do not question officially correct answers!
far too many students on this forum make the mistake of questioning the correct answers; to do so is to waste your time and effort.

"is this correct?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers -- the answer is always yes.
"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers -- the answer is always no.

instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"why is this correct?"
"how does this work?"
"what understanding am i lacking that i need to understand this choice?"

this is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking.
you will find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you retire the idea that they might be wrong.

--

this is not an inference / "must be true" question -- because that's not what it says.
in fact, the prompt question refers to the correct answer as a "hypothesis", a name clearly implying that you are NOT going to prove the statement conclusively. (if you were to do that, it would no longer be a "hypothesis".)

this problem is just asking you to find, essentially, which of these five choices benefits most from the available evidence.
it's like having 5 scientists in front of you, each propounding a particular hypothesis; you have to judge who is most likely to be correct.
there's a clear winner here, so we're all good.

also, which answer choice did you think was better?
again, there's no point in questioning the official answers -- but, if you're going to do it anyway, you had darn well better try to support another choice. there won't be 5 wrong answers.

[RonPurewal]

also, more generally...

you shouldn't expect every CR problem to fit neatly into one of the "boxes" that correspond to chapters in the strategy guides.
those categories are a good starting point, but, ultimately, this is (just as it says) a test of critical reasoning. occasionally, they're going to throw stranger or more particular questions at you, and you'll have to deal with them by reading the literal words of the question and thinking about them.

in fact, "classifying" the questions is a sub-optimal approach in general.
your #1 approach should be "read the words of the question, and see whether you understand what the question is asking you to do." if you do, great! go answer the problem! in that case, there's no need to classify anything -- and, as you've seen here, trying to do so could even drive you off track.

classifying the problems can be a useful backup approach if you get lost in the original task, but it should not be the #1 way you approach these things.